46 AN ACCOUNT OF A BOTANICAL EXPEDITION 



nest fern, Thamnopteris nidus. This fern, so common in 

 the south of the Peninsula, is quite rare here. No doubt 

 most of the country was too dry for it. The rarity of ferns 

 in this region when compared with their abundance in the 

 South is very marked. Many very common ones are quite 

 absent, and the few that one sees are all hard textured species, 

 in fact xerophytic ferns- 

 Butterflies do not seem to be very plentiful over this 

 country or perhaps were less so than usual at the time of 

 my visit. An old favourite Jwionia Wallacei was common in 

 the grassy meadows. It is a charming little butterfly with 

 its violet blue patch on the upper wings of the male, and is 

 distributed over the whole Peninsula as far south as Singa- 

 pore Botanic Gardens, but not very common here. It is 

 very abundant near the Penang waterfall. I saw too at 

 Chupeng a wonderful little butterfly black and transparent 

 waterblue Leptocercus curius. It vibrates its wings as it 

 flies so that it looks almost like a blue mist or the ripples on 

 water. Hence it is called the rippling water butterfly. It 

 occurs also as far south as Singapore. By the ca,ve of 

 Chupeng the fine brown and orange Thaumantis pseudoliris 

 was abundant, keeping in the shadier paths. Cyrestes peri- 

 ander was in great force in Setul at Bukit Eajah Wang, and 

 Papilio Antiphates var. pompilim was also not rare about 

 Setul. 



The next two days were occupied in sorting out and 

 preparing the plants already collected and in two visits to the 

 hill known as Bukit Hangat Besih behind the house, 1 which 

 hill on the second day we walked entirely round. There 

 were a great many interesting trees and shrubs here, and 

 many were conspicuously thorny showing the xerophytism of 

 this region. As we w 7 ere about to cross a stream Beneath 

 an archway of bushes, Mat spied a very large snake coiled 

 up in the boughs overhead. It was the black and yellow 

 ringed snake known as Ular Chin Chin Mas by the Malays, 

 and Dipsadomorphus dendrophilus by Naturalists. It is by 

 no means an uncommon snake all over the Peninsula and is 



Jour. Straits Branch 



